A 30-day notice from the Department of Energy that it plans to begin sending truckloads of plutonium to South Carolina has raised the ire of Gov. Jim Hodges.

Hodges is vehemently against the shipments, and has threatened to post state troopers at the border to stop the loads.
The shipments are necessary to meet a schedule for closing the Rocky Flats weapons facility on Colorado by 2006. The Bush administration plans to send excess plutonium from weapons facilities around the country to the DOE’s Savannah River facility in South Carolina. There it will be made into fuel to run commercial nuclear reactors.
Hedges says he won’t allow any shipments until he gets firm assurance that the plutonium will only be in the state temporarily. Although Abraham has made a formal commitment to take the plutonium back of the conversion plant falls behind schedule or runs into funding problems, that wasn’t enough for the South Carolina governor. Last week, Abraham rejected a demand from Hodges that a federal judge oversee the enforcement of any agreement on the plutonium shipments.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham has given a 30-day notice required by Congress that he plans to start the shipments around May 15. The plan is to send 76 trailer loads of plutonium from Rocky Flats to South Carolina through June of next year.
Two U.S. representatives from South Carolina are working on legislation that could require the plutonium not be left in the state permanently.